There are moments as a mother when you have to let go of all reason and rules and just go with the flow for the sake of your kids. Yesterday afternoon was one of those moments. Lindsay and Logan were outside playing with our neighbor kids and they were trying to catch bugs in some glass jars. They weren’t having much luck with catching anything in the air and decided to try and catch ants instead. Jeffy noticed some ants in our flower garden and pointed it out to the kids and they thought they had found the mother load! What happened next was when I just had to let go and go with it. Somehow Lindsay talked me into letting her get some crackers for the ants and the next thing I knew, we were putting crackers on the bricks around the flower garden and watching the ants swarm around them. They would then pick up the crackers covered in ants and put them into their jars. They thought it was so cool! Since they were having SO MUCH FUN with this, I suggested we break the crackers into tiny little pieces and see if the ants will carry them to their ant hill.

*eyes wide and big smiles from all the kids*

So, we broke some pieces off and sure enough, those little ants worked SO HARD to get those pieces over the side of the brick and down into their ant hill. The kids thought it was SO COOL!!! And I have to admit, it was pretty neat to watch.

Lindsay was trying to help the ants with the cracker in this picture.

Logan would watch the ants every once in awhile but he was too busy riding his bike and looking cool.

Half way through this little adventure though, I realized that purposely feeding the ants probably won’t help to get rid of them. So once the kids were losing interest I grabbed the ant poison and shook at those neat little ants. Thanks, Ants, for the fun science experiment! Now DIE!
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Last week we bought a patio set and kept the huge box for the kids to play in. They colored on it and claimed it as their house. We also bought a weed whacker and took it out of the box yesterday and with a suggestion from Lane, turned that box into a chimney/fireplace for the kids house. Lindsay then crumpled up yellow, orange and red construction paper to make fire and later on, the kids roasted marshmallows on forks. Too cute!

Jeff and I thought it would be fun to get a team together to play in the softball tournament for our city’s summer festival. So, we got a team together, which consisted of a couple people who had played softball before on teams, some who had at least played the game before and some who had never played. We got jerseys made and our team name was Clever Nickname. We only got the chance to play three games. We lost our first one, won the second one and lost the third one. It was a double elimination tournament, so after our third game we were out. We both had an amazing second game, with Jeff hitting a home run and me catching the game ending ball. I was so excited about catching the ball, I even did a little jump to celebrate. We both had a GREAT time playing and can’t wait until we can play again. Thanks teammates for an awesome run!!

Clever Nickname Team

Boys: Cam Kawa, Todd Nielsen, Jeff, Bret Olsen, Chris Wren, Spencer Poulson, Flavio Martins
Girls: Cassy Applegate, Wendy Sorensen, Me, Sarah Wren, Heidi Clark, Niki Martins

The backs of our jerseys.

On Friday, Lindsay had her Show Week in Gymnastics and she did a FANTASTIC job!! A few weeks ago they gave them all a piece of paper with the routines on each skill (tumbling, bars, beam) and wanted them to practice and memorize as much as they could. And that is just what Lindsay did! I am not joking when I say she practiced ALL day EVERY day until Show Week. She was doing cartwheels and donkey kicks any place she could: at home, the park, the backyard, and even the store. All that practice paid off and she did great! I am so proud of her for working so hard to get that cartwheel down and her donkey kicks high! While practicing she even did a couple of handstands and even flipped over on a few. I can tell she really loves gymnastics!!

This is her teacher, Miss Mel, who she absolutely adores! Every time she does something at home for the first time, she can’t wait for Friday to show Miss Mel!

This is Lindsay’s tumbling routine. It’s in two different videos. Deal with it.


Lindsay on the beam!

Lindsay on the bar.

In between each skill, they let the kids run around and have free time. Instead of waiting for this free time to play on everything, Logan just plays the whole time and he’s so cute doing it!
Here’s Logan trying to do a back roll.


The kids on the rings.


She’s even beautiful waiting patiently, watching the other kids.

Flipping over the top bar.

Logan wanted to be involved, too, so he just went and sat down by all the big kids. He’s so cute!

Lindsay getting her award. YAY Lindsay!

Logan even wanted to stand with the big kids at the end…

Way to go Lindsay! We’re so proud of you!!